


Decoding

by equivalencept



Category: Halo (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, Fluff, a character is a bit drunk in this but nothing inappropriate happens, vague undercover mission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2019-05-25 07:05:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14971679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/equivalencept/pseuds/equivalencept
Summary: Fred and Veta have a conversation after a rather disagreeable contact with a target. Veta is unrelenting. Fred gets flustered.





	Decoding

“If I changed the frequency to -- no, that wouldn’t work...what about...hm…” The sound of Fred murmuring to himself woke Veta up from her slight doze on the couch.

 

Veta shifted herself up into a sitting position. Fred, sitting on the floor across the coffee table, looked up at her and lifted an eyebrow.

 

Before he could make a joke about her sleeping on the job, she pushed her commpad towards him. “I finished my verbal report,” Veta said, though Fred already knew that. She had recorded it only an hour ago, right after she got back from the meeting with the target. Standard protocol called for an operative to record any contact with the target as soon as possible after it happened, when the details were still fresh in the mind. Even when that mind was slightly drunk, and the report was a mess. “Gonna be a pain to redo that tomorrow, before I submit.”

 

“Well, you _should_ submit both that report and another with whatever details you remembered later. Not a redone version,” Fred said, typing quickly on his computer. He must have made a breakthrough with decoding the message he’d gotten from Command.

 

“Yeah, but I don’t really want ONI to have twenty minutes of my drunken ramblings.”

 

“Drink your water,” Fred said immediately at this reminder, waving his hand at the glass in front of her.

 

Veta picked up the glass, but said, “I’m fine now.” Fred snorted. “I am! I’m mostly sober.”

 

Socializing with the target was always Veta’s least favorite part of the mission. There was always the danger that they’d call her bluff, or get suspicious, or even worse, act on those suspicions. Veta hated even more when befriending the target involved drinking, like this evening had.

 

She still remembered her sophomore year health teacher, saying “Alcohol makes everything more dangerous! Only drink when you are certain you’re in a safe area!” _Well, sorry to disappoint you_ , _Mrs. Owens_ , Veta thought. _I don’t think getting drunk with a mobster is anyone’s idea of safe._ At least she’d had a direct line to Fred the entire evening. A fully capable Spartan, even one sans his Mjolnir, was way more than most ONI operatives got. Even though she typically had three Spartans on her side.

 

The night had only gotten worse when she realized after three drinks that Fizzing Nebulas had nearly twice the amount of alcohol here than they did on Gao. But she’d gotten home safe, without any tracking devices or bugs to boot. After over an hour of drinking water and dozing on the couch, she was feeling a lot more sober, too.

 

Fred, now finishing up decoding a line in the message, picked up her commpad and tapped it to display her report recording. “You’re not sober enough to remember to hit stop on your recording, apparently,” he said wryly.

 

“I’m fine now,” Veta insisted again. “And that’s just more reason not to submit that report. I’m sure ONI doesn’t want to listen to over thirty minutes of silence inspur--... interspis--... thirty minutes of silence _sprinkled_ with you talking to yourself.”

 

Fred frowned. “I don’t talk to myself.”

 

Veta disagreed. In the past two weeks of sharing a living space, Veta had noticed that Fred tended to mumble to himself whenever silence stretched on for too long. He even talked in his sleep sometimes.

 

But Veta didn’t want to argue the point with Fred now. Instead, she sipped her water, and let the conversation lull back into silence interspersed ( _that’s_ the word she was looking for!) with the sound of Fred typing.

 

As she regarded him while he worked, Veta began to notice little details about Fred. When he was focused on a problem, his brow was always furled. He would bite his lip when he made a mistake and had to backstep. He would bounce his thumb against the trackpad of his computer when he was thinking. And from time to time he would glance up at Veta and quickly look down again, the tops of his ears going red.

 

The fourth time this happened, Veta wriggled down lower on the couch so she could poke Fred with her foot under the coffee table between them. (Okay, so maybe she was still a bit drunk).

 

“Hey,” she said, nudging him again. “Why do you keep doing that?”

 

“Doing what?” he said, not looking up from his computer screen.

 

“Looking at me, then away. And you’re blushing, too.”

 

“Well,” he began, finally meeting her eyes, “you’re the one who’s been staring at me for the past five minutes.” The corners of Fred’s eyes were crinkled, his head tilted. He wasn’t mad at her, then. Perplexed, maybe.

 

“Oh,” she said. In the silence, Veta took another sip of her water. “Okay, so I am still a bit drunk.” Fred snorted again. “But in my defense, you have very beautiful eyes.”

 

Fred froze at this, his entire face going beet red. After a few seconds of staring wide-eyed at Veta, his eyes latched onto the computer screen in front of him. “Um,” he began, readjusting the screen and the positioning of the laptop, even though he’d been using the same setup for as long as Veta had been home. “Um,” he said again. He cleared his throat, then began again, “Yes, so, I’m halfway through decoding this message. I should have the rest of it done in a few minutes. The first half is just SOP-”

 

“Fred,” Veta interrupted, “you know that, right? Your eyes are very handsome.”

 

Fred was now looking anywhere except Veta. She would have left the conversation there, but the shades of red Fred was cycling through were almost comical. And, well, she was drunk.

 

“Your nose is nice, too,” Veta said. She propped her elbows on the table and leaned forward, so that she was only two feet away from Fred. “It’s very strong, and the bump in it is cute. Your smile is pretty, too-”

 

Fred, at this point, had his face in his hands, and was bowing his head to hide behind his laptop screen.

 

“Thanks, Veta,” he mumbled, cutting her off. “This message - we just have to respond to it with a status update. We can do that tomorrow. Drink the rest of your water.” With that, he closed his laptop and stood up. After hesitating for a moment, he pushed the glass into Veta’s hands and gently wrapped her fingers around it.

 

“Goodnight,” Fred said softly, then turned and headed into his room before Veta could reply.

 

“Goodnight, Fred,” Veta called softly to his closed door, still clutching the glass of water.

 

\--

 

The next morning, Veta awoke to a throbbing behind her forehead and to the smell of bacon cooking. There was more water besides her nightstand, which she drank in a few swallows. While she was showering, she tried to remember what had happened last night in the bar, with some difficulty. Ugh. It looked like she would have to listen to the mess of a report she had made last night and try to decipher it.

 

Coming out of her room, dressed but with a towel still around her wet hair, Veta saw breakfast was ready. The bacon she had smelled earlier was staying warm in the toaster oven, and on the counter she saw steamed buns stuffed with vegetables and eggs - her favorite, ever since she was child. Even if it did now come from a freezer box. Fred was preparing some kind of tea. Seeing him, she remembered more of what had happened last night, after she left the bar. Veta made a face. _Why_ did she have to be so talkative when she was drunk?

 

“Good morning,” she greeted him as she came in, before moving to grab a glass.

 

“Morning,” he returned, eyes crinkling as he smiled at her.

 

Veta pauses, thinking, then put down her glass before she could fill it with water. “Fred, listen,” she began, “I’m sorry about last night. I think I really embarrassed you. I didn’t mean to.”

 

“Oh,” Fred said, and for a moment Veta thought she saw disappointment cross his face. Just as quickly, however, Fred was smiling again. “It was no problem, Veta. You’re not an obnoxious drunk at all. I’m just glad nothing went wrong at the bar last night.” He scowled. “I hate that this mission forces you to make yourself vulnerable.”

 

“That’s undercover missions, in general,” Veta said wryly. “I had to do stuff like this even back on Gao. But,” Veta said, after quickly thinking a few things over, “when I said ‘I didn’t mean to,’ I meant I didn’t want to make you embarrassed.” Veta took a step closer to him. Fred, for his part, simply stared curiously down at her.

 

Veta reached up and bopped his nose. “I still do think that you are very attractive. I don’t know if anyone has ever told you that, but you should know.”

 

Fred was completely red again. After a moment, he bopped Vera’s nose in return and said softly, “Thank you.” He moved away from her and picked the buns up off of the counter. “Now, let’s eat.”

 

Veta smiled. “Yes, let’s.”

  


**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Unsteady](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15178100) by [Thalius](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thalius/pseuds/Thalius)




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